What Went Right This Year: 10 Positive Stories From 2023

1️⃣Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Was Way Down

The Amazon rainforest has long been a prime example of the importance of fighting climate change — the essential ecosystem (and carbon sink) has suffered from devastating deforestation, fires, and more over recent decades. But 2023 proved to be a banner year for Brazil’s portion of the rainforest.

#NiceNews #GoodNews #ClimateChange #2023

2️⃣Harvard Researchers Found the Key to Happiness

Happiness is an amorphous concept, one that means something different to each individual person. But this year, Ivy League researchers seemed to get as close as they could to nailing down that elusive “key to happiness” — and it all has to do with our connections to one another.

#Happiness #BeHappy #FeelGoodStories #NiceNews

3️⃣Guinea Worm Disease Got Close to Eradication

The World Health Organization declared in 1980 that smallpox had officially been wiped out, thanks to successful vaccination campaigns around the globe. In 2023, another illness got on track to become the second-ever infectious disease to be eradicated, and the first to reach the milestone without medicine or a vaccine.

#Health #NiceNews #GoodNews #PublicHealth

4️⃣Montana Youth Won a Landmark Climate Case

The plaintiffs in Held v. Montana, ranging in age from 5 to 22, went up against a provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act that prevented the state from considering the climate when approving fossil fuel projects. They argued that the provision went against the Montana state constitution, which guarantees them the right to a “clean and healthful environment.”

#Environment #NiceNews #GoodNews #Montana

5️⃣America’s Gender Pay Gap Hit an All-Time Low

July statistics from the Department of Labor showed that America’s gender pay gap had shrunk 22% since 1979, meaning it had hit at an all-time low.

In the second quarter of 2023, women made 84 cents for every $1 dollar men made for similar work, compared to 62 cents in 1979. Though there’s still progress to be made — and women of color continue to suffer the most severe pay disparities — the shrinking gap is a heartening trend.

#NiceNews

6️⃣Scientists Discovered 380 New Species in Southeast Asia

The Earth is a vast, mysterious place, which makes it primed for new discoveries of plants and animals. In May, the World Wide Fund for Nature announced that scientists had found 380 new species — one mammal, 46 reptiles, 24 amphibians, 19 fishes, and 290 plants — in a single remote region of Southeast Asia.

#Nature #NiceNews #Asia #Science

7️⃣Baby Born From Transplanted Uterus Outside of Clinical Trial

The first baby born from a transplanted uterus outside of a clinical trial entered the world this past May, and doctors shared the details of the medical marvel in July. Mom Mallory, who used only her first name for privacy reasons, was born without a uterus due to a congenital condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome.

#Childbirth #NiceNews #GoodNews #Miracles

8️⃣Astrophysics Papers Changed How We View the Universe

Building off Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, scientists observed gravitational waves throughout space and time, suggesting the universe “looks like a choppy sea, churned by violent events that happened over the course of the past 13 billion-plus years,” as described by Washington Post science writers Joel Achenbach and Victoria Jaggard.

#NiceNews #Science #Universe Space

9️⃣18 Cancer Patients Went Into Remission After a New Treatment

Cancer research is making incredible progress, and more people are surviving than decades past. A study from March was the perfect example of this progress, with about one-third of clinical trial participants — 18 individuals — going into remission.

#Research #NiceNews #Cancer #Medicine #HealthAndWellness #CancerTreatment